Match Preview: Mutxamel CF v CD Jávea

MUTXAMEL CF V CD JÁVEA
Sunday 8th September, 7.30pm
Camp Nou Los Olmos Mutxamel

This Sunday, CD Jávea travel 80km south to Mutxamel for the opening game of the 2024/25 campaign in Group 4 of the Primera FFCV. After the disappointment of relegation from the Lliga Comunitat at the end of last season, the rojiblancos will be looking to mount a bid for an immediate return and head coach Julio Ivorra has been building a squad that he hopes will meet that challenge.

The pre-season campaign has been a bit of a mixed bag with just one win in seven games and just three goals scored by three different players. However, the summer training programme is often more about building fitness, stamina and strength whilst also allowing the coaching staff to look at players – both new arrivals and established squad players – to determine their style and strategy for the forthcoming competitive campaign, so results shouldn’t be taken as a complete indicator of the team’s potential in the league. The real hard work starts this Sunday.

THE HOSTS

Mutxamel Club de Fútbol was founded in 1969 and initially competed in regional leagues under the jurisdiction of the Murcian Football Federation (FFRM) before transferring to the Valencian equivalent (FFCV) in 1976 along with other clubs located in the centre of the Province of Alicante.

In 1977/78, the club won the Primera Regional Grupo Sur to win promoted to the top tier of regional football for the first time but within three years they were back in the second tier. In 1982/83, Mutxamel won its second championship, beating runners-up CD Jávea to the title in dominant fashion to return to the Regional Preferente where they remained for the rest of the decade until the disastrous 1989/90 campaign saw them finished rock bottom with just 11 points, whilst CD Jávea claimed the championship and won promotion to the Tercera División.

It wasn’t long until Mutxamel CF would join the rojiblancos in the national system. Two successive championship seasons saw the club rise to the Tercera División for the first time in its history and it remained at this level – step 4 in the Spanish national pyramid at the time – until the 1996/97 season when Mutxamel CF finished bottom and suffered relegation back into the regionals. The club has never returned to the national pyramid.

Over the next two decades, Mutxamel CF claimed three more championships at Primera Regional level (1999/00, 2008/09, 2012/13) but never quite established itself in the top tier, drifting between step 1 and step 2 until 2014 when it finished second from bottom of the Regional Preferente and dropped back in the Primera Regional – now Primera FFCV – when the club has remained ever since.

HEAD 2 HEAD

CD Jávea and Mutxamel CF are familiar foes, having met 36 times since the 1976/77 season, a campaign in which Mutxamel chalked up their biggest ever win against the rojiblancos (6-1) and completed the ‘double’ with what has turned out to be their only win in Jávea.

The clubs last met during the 2010-11 season when CD Jávea completed the ‘double’ with a 3-2 win at home and a 2-1 win at the Campo Nou Los Olmos against a side that had already confirmed their relegation.

PRIMERA FFCV – Group 4

FIXTURES – JORNADA 1

Saturday 7th September
16:00 – CF Intercity ‘B’ v Novelda CF
18:00 – CD Murada v Villena CF
18:45 – CD El Campello v Santa Pola CF
19:00 – Benferri CF v CD Betis Florida
Sunday 8th September
11:45 – Villajoyosa CF v CD Montesinos
18:30 – Catral-Castrum CF v CD Almoradi
19:00 – Callosa Deportiva CF v CF Sporting de San Fulgencio
19:30 – Mutxamel CF v CD Jávea